@ 103 - "There is a gay/non-gay dynamic in which the gay person is so grateful to be treated decently that he accepts behaviour from the non-gay person that one would rarely see being allowed to fly in the case of other prejudices."

I'm happy to inform you that this is not at all the kind of gay man I am. I never settle for merely "decent" treatment.

As for my mother and sisters, there was never any real power dynamics at play between us. I was a faggot, I was the youngest, but I still had the advantage of being a guy, so it pretty much evened it out, and we became allies in our common fight against idiocy.

Ricardo wrote: As for the Duggar women, I believe it was in no way necessary for their "matriarch" ... to inform us that they don't get headaches. Anyone who has ever seen or heard them (or just heard about them) knows that they lack the required equipment for that.

I'm enjoying this new guy.

Dan, why didn't you tell BIBFAULT to use the vibrator while having boring vanilla sex? I use a vibrator sometimes during sex, it is easy in both the missionary and doggy positions! And if he cums too soon, she should finish herself with the vibrator, in fact, she should ask him to help. It should turn him on that his wife is getting pleasure. This is a much simpler solution than cheating.

What am I missing? Why not just bring the vibrator to bed together? You might both enjoy it.

Yeah Allen, tell us what you really think.
Didn't like the energy coming off this letter, at all.
Someone in my cunt and its herstory ( history), like that- would really piss me off big time. Yuk.

25 and 37-- It's easy when looking back over broad sweeps in history to think that everything was a lot simpler than it was, easy to make generalizations. It's true that we tend to remember the sexual revolution of the 1960s as marking the transition from the the repressed wait-until-marriage days that preceded to the anything-goes days that came after. In truth, it's more complicated, more individual. My father certainly knew some number of women who didn't wait for marriage when he was dating in the 1940s. He didn't necessarily consider them too fast or as having ruined reputations or anything. I wouldn't say it was the norm, but those women were around.

I came of age in the late 70s and early 80s, and I recall the whole wait-for-marriage discussion to be huge-- at least in some circles. There was no assumption that virginity was something you wanted to get over with. I may personally have looked down on young women who were virgins, but I was a judgmental snot back then. I'm careful to give folks the benefit of the doubt now. (I figure that if I can accept being gay as just another variation, I ought to accept monogamy the same way, and wanting to start partnered sex at different ages too.) So it doesn't surprise me that the LW recalls being brought up to wait for marriage as being the norm in 80s. Lots of people did even that late. It doesn't necessarily have to go with a fundamentalist upbringing. I guessed that she may be seeing Christian counselors now, but I can't be sure. She may just have run into cousellors that aren't doing the job for her.

BIBFault... use the vibrator WHILE you are having sex. What's wrong with the simplest solution?

It's no wonder she "can't" have an orgasm with him and I doubt she would bringing the vibrator to bed with them. She had an orgasm and proceeded to feel cheated out of them since the wedding night. No mention if sex with her husband is in anyway enjoyable or if it makes her feel connected/loved. No mention of love or intimacy at all. Just boiled straight down to he came and she didn't whenever they had sex. And now she harbors damn near insurmountable resentment.

Mentioning husbands good qualities without saying love? Check.

Resent husband for not getting her off since wedding night? Check

No mentioning of previous sexual exploration solo/together throughout marrige? Check.

Recently decided to explore body and started with vibrator? Check.

Now wants "light" kink and is pissed husband isn't immediately interested/on board? Check.

Middle age? Check.

I guess with the first movie coming out we were bound to get letters verbatim of when 50 shades first made the news.

Seriously tho, congrats on the new found super power. Explore the shit out of it. It took you over 50 years to open up to it, don't expect sex with your husband to get you there today (not hard after 30 years). Take the pressure and resentment out and just explore. If he won't come with you on this new chapter of your life, then divorce. An affair is just going to make you resent him more and lead to it anyways because with the walls you have in place now garuntee any man but him is going to be able to make you come.

Another thing, I was raised Roman Catholic with Orthodox grandparents (they've left parishes for not being hard line enough). I went to Sunday school, was instilled with shame and threatened with hell fire. I still checked out what was under the hood and masturbated relentlessly after figuring out it felt good and felt zero shame. I don't understand how people make it to marriage without knowing how to get off regardless of the baby Jesus.

@ 7-nocute Thanks or alerting me re comments from last week.

As for this week's first question, and my apologies if anyone has already stated this:
MOST ORGANIZED RELIGIONS DO THEIR BEST TO KEEP PEOPLE SEXUALLY FRUSTRATED, AFRAID, AND ASHAMED. IT’S GOOD FOR BUSINESS. THEY ARE PARTICUALLY GOOD IN OPRESSING FEMALE SEXUALITY.

Some Catholics have already chimed in here earlier, and we all know about “those” Muslims. I’d like to broaden the oppression scope and refer the public to an article published recently in The New York Times magazine about an observant sex counselor Jewish woman who treats her peers. In many cases the female patient is obligated to communicate the advice to the rabbi and ask for his approval. He tells them “NO” and probably goes to the bathroom soon after, masturbating while thinking of them actually do what the counselor told them to do. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/magazi…

I had sex for the first time with a stranger I met in a motel. I don’t know how old he was but he did have kids. I was thirteen.

The rendezvous was my idea. Not a lot of pleasure but no trauma either. My goal was to tick off a box and the goal was achieved. We had an argument about condoms and I won which gave me a lot of self-confidence for other, unrelated negotiations with grown-ups as I approached adulthood.

Yeah, the guy committed statutory tape. Fine. The reason it’s called statutory rape is that the young person may be completely willing but it’s still a big deal and young people are vulnerable so back off. My willingness didn’t make sex with a thirteen-years-and-three-months-old girl less fucked-up on his part. But in this instance the fuckwittedness of my first sexual partner didn’t happen to translate into trauma for me, and anyone who wants me to feel traumatized is being a fuckwit themselves.

@44, yep, pretty much. I'll take her word for it that her husband is bad and doesn't want to get better. That doesn't explain how she never discovered what every little girl knows, which is that rubbing or touching certain places feels pretty good. She never noticed for fifty years? Amazing. The earliest time I'm certain I can remember masturbating is eight, but I'm sure I did preludes to masturbation earlier.

And Dan is right; whatever counseling they got sure doesn't seem to have been worth their time or money.

I want to point out there are a lot more options for BIBFAULT than she was listing. She doesn't have to have a local affair to have sex with somebody else, and she doesn't even have to have an affair at all. There are these things called 'one night stands'. They're theoretically easier for a woman to pull off than a man, but we will see if she has enough confidence to actually go through with it. Best done while on vacation, somewhere else, outside the oppressive judgement of your small-town neighbors.

Also, divorce doesn't have to mean she never talks to her ex again. There are divorced people who still see each other socially, and discover they can be much better friends when they only have to see each other every-so-often, rather than trying to share a household.

@96 I know several decades plus marriages that work that way. Perhaps your friends are suffering from overly traditional worldviews, rather than their gender?

LW1's husband is a coward. He used to blame her for her sexual dysfunction/anorgasmia. It is now obviously not her fault. Since he can't blame her anymore, it is now his fault. He has learned he is bad at sex. He says he thinks it is "sweet" that they haven't had sex with anyone else. What it is is extremely lucky for him, because it means he can keep on not trying. He's afraid. And super super dumb. I'm sure, along with their lousy upbringing, she and he both absorbed a lot of fun ideas about her being extremely careful of his superior male status, where his feelings about sex matter more than his. Certainly their entire marriage has been a pretty solid illustration of their belief in that. He's got to change.

Sure, try the vibrator thing during sex. I think he'll feel extremely threatened by it, because his ideas about sex are ass backwards. And because actually seeing her experience sexual pleasure will be proof positive he's been a failure in bed.

It might be "sweet" that you have never slept with anyone else other than him, but if he is uninterested in learning anything useful about your body and your sexual pleasure, it's also cruel.

@122 correction: "Where his feelings about sex matter more than hers." Possibly they were taught his feelings about everything matter more than hers, depending on how fundie.

@96 Just anecdotally of course and going from my friend group, confident powerful women also tend to be more assertive sexually, and want to have more frequent and adventurous sex (this from them and/or from their husbands/bfs who I'm close enough to). I think it's likely that they choose to marry men who don't find their dick shrinks when in the room with a woman who is sexually and personally assertive. Most men out in the world seem to respond to them positively, but I suppose some guys might be less able to perform. Perhaps it's a generational difference?

Ah, there you are Humter. Is 50 shades more feminism?
Well.. In my version of feminism;
Some hot tension between a cis man and a cis woman, is what it's all about.
Obviously, not what it's all about. A very welcome part , though.

@120 Not every little girl knows. We are generally curbed quite hard quite young, and the anatomy isn't nearly as accessible. While little boys routinely play with their penises all day every day (at least during the school day, ye gods), little girls don't. And as you know, as I assume you've been out in the world fucking many adult women, there are plenty of women who can only come with a vibrator. She was taught by all the adults around her and her church that her husband was supposed to give her pleasure. He didn't, so it was assumed by both of them that the fault was with her, that she was defective. Also, the likelihood of a woman orgasming from a one night stand sex is pretty goddamn low. Hell, it's pretty low for a guy.

@115 Some women can only orgasm by vibrator. I don't know why. Betty Dodson is one and it seems like she really gave it the college try.

For example, apparently she's doing her masterclasses again. LW1 might want to look into it, drag the hubby along.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/…

@74 I’ve been in hospital for periods too. The strongest clue that I was healing was that I was a bit too happy to see particular nurses. If the dude can’t access the 'sexy nurse' concept, then I would suggest he’s not recovered enough for sex.

@83, @96 The point about ‘sexy nurse’ is that it is a way to eroticise that dependency. Sure, MMSL may want her hubby to be strong and dominant, but until he is again there’s other ways to play, and things to explore.

Gnot; I've never used a vibrator. I self pleasure by hand- so nice to play with all that soft flesh.. And I do/ did have orgasms thru sex. I just had to be on top.
We all different.

LW1

Remembered this Louis CK bit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhK0K7YW…

The difference between men and women during sex/cuddling.

@120, I didn't masturbate till I was 18, and then it was just because I had a friend who encouraged me, and suggested that I try reading Penthouse Forum. And then explained the difference between dildos and vibrators (I thought vibrators were for insertion).

I can't remember if she actually bought this for me or just encouraged me to buy it (well, a similar model):
https://img0.etsystatic.com/025/1/668126…

I can come either with a good story, or with a powerful vibrator. But I didn't have access to either until I was out of my parents' house.

Erica; I was very lazy, till I found myself without a phallus handy.
Had to learn to self pleasure to orgasm, way way late.
Got the hang of it now.

And the longer bit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGgS5GVC…

Also for LW1 - Buy your kids the Goofy Foot Guide To Getting It On and make your husband read it too. Apparently he's at the same educational level re: sex.

@134 Would you be hot for someone who never brought you to orgasm, then when it was explained how to do it, still never would? She's probably never experienced full sexual arousal before in her life. He's never taken the trouble, and they both thought she was sexually defective.

He won't even use a vibrator on her. I'm 1000% sure he's got no interest in touching her clit.

She deserves someone else if he continues to have no interest in her sexual pleasure and wants to prevent his children from learning about theirs.

@120 To back up EricaP: I didn't orgasm until I was 25. I had probably masturbated maybe five times postpuberty before that. I wasn't discouraged by my parents from masturbating as a child, but clearly I absorbed the (liberal state, public school, no religious influence) message all around me and stopped touching myself, to predictable consequences. I had no conscious sense of shame about it, I just was never able to orgasm and thought I was broken so why try?

Wish I could say this was unusual for my female friends. Have you ever asked yours?

@129 I never use them either, and I do not get the bathtub thing. To each their own.

@120 Lest you think I was not trying hard enough, I was also fucking girls during that time. And boys. Often together.

Regarding BIBAULT: I thought you were about to suggest she ask her husband about opening up the marriage, setting guidlines etc. I'm curious as to why you opted not to suggest that route. (For the record, I think opening any relationship is a bad idea).

Hope is good for indiviuals and marriages, but deceit is detrimental to both the deceiver and the deceived, even in small amounts. I'd implore BIBAULT to consider even if she was the most covert cheater in the world, even if the chance of her husband finding out was just 1%, what it might do to her husband if he did find out. Could she handle for the rest of her life knowing she caused him such pain? Is that 99% chance of keeping it secret worth the 100% chance he'll be devastated should he find out?

Why not just be honest - in fact, BIBAULT should show her husband this column and say "I'm so unsatisfied with our sex life, I've written to a columnist for advice and find myself thinking of other men. Give a real effort to fix this problem with me." She needs to be honest about her feelings with her husband. She's tried before yes, but she needs to be completely honest and say "I'm so sex-starved I'm having thoughts of other men" - that would kick any good husband into action. And if he doesn't make any effort to improve after a shock like that, then maybe there's grounds for divorce.

He'll be devastated just by hearing she's considering cheating, most likely. But at least then both people are informed of the reality of their relationship, and both can make an informed decision about how to proceed. Anyone who can't tell their SO the truth about their feelings either doesn't feel them strongly enough or doesn't belong in a relationship.

@140 Why would he be devastated that she's thinking of cheating? First of all, everyone thinks about cheating. Second, he knows he's refusing to learn how to give her an orgasm, so he knows perfectly well he's essentially refusing to make sex satisfying for her. He feels threatened by a vibrator for gods sake. He's that tremendously insecure. No way he'd be even remotely surprised she's thinking of cheating.

She does need to lay down the law though. Apparently he's still living in delusionland, where she's just supposed to accept crappy sex because he's the man and she's the woman and that's the way it is. Or because he's successfully trapped her with children/religious righteousness/love without actual caring and now she has few/no options and so can't leave. Which leaves cheating as her only option. Which he knows.

And honestly the husband could easily spare himself the pain of her cheating if he bothered to say, learn how to touch her clitoris. He doesn't seem to care. So, he runs the risk of finding out his wife is, quite understandably, cheating. If a wife refused to touch her husbands penis for 30 years while grinding her clitoris against his leg to get herself off spectacularly over and over again, and refused any contact with his penis when asked, I doubt she'd truly be shocked if he strayed.

@141 continued - re: the last paragraph - not only using the husband's leg to grind herself to orgasm, but then blaming him for not orgasming from that contact alone, and then going to a psychotherapist with him to discuss how he needs to change his emotions/thoughts so that he can orgasm without any contact with his penis, just like all the other men can do, because it's disappointing the wife that he can't do that.

Wow - BIB sure experienced a different 80's than I did!

Re: girls masturbating - I worked out how to masturbate to orgasm by the age of 9, but I didn't know what orgasm was or connect what I was doing to sex. This was mainly because sex was explained to me by my repressed parents and by elementary school sex ed as a way of making babies. Orgasm for women, or sexual pleasure for men or women, was not a part of it. So I had a couple of years of completely guilt/shame-free orgasms (since I had also absorbed the message that sex = guilt/shame/dirtiness) until I realized around the age of 11 what I was doing. The realization didn't stop me, though.

Re: what we teach our kids about sex - I'm now the parent of a young daughter. All I've been able to do so far is tell her that she can touch her private area as much as she likes, in private. And that no one else (except a doctor with my permission and in my presence) can touch her there. And I've given her a hand mirror & showed her how to position it so she can see her private area. I'm sure she'll be ready for the next step - whatever it is - before I've figured out how to navigate it. She also knows through observation that I have a special relationship with my SO that involves being naked in bed together (under covers, when she's around), and that I like it.

@83Sean. : so you brought up the " strips men of their manhood" words,
Sorry Tim. Though you did bring in money making.
Strange comment, Sean. A woman caring for a man rips the man's manhood. I don't see that. I don't understand that.
Being sick, you mean? Needing care?

... which has made me a fairly vocal opponent of the "waiting for marriage" garbage ...

Honey, I'm moving your placecard, because you need to come sit by me. We're going to throw bags of santorum at Rick Santorum over the whole "sex is only for procreation" business, and the whole "sex is only for married people" clan of his.

Hey Hunter, well haven't open the letter yet. Burning a hole in my backpack..
Heading into the city tomorrow evening. The Teaching is on. My weekly spiritual hit. Gonna read the letter, as I have early dinner.. So if it's shitty, I'll be able to dispel the energy at the Teaching.
He's got one chance, see if there's a movement in his stuck mind.
Living chapters, Hunter.. For your education. That somewhere, sometime- you will connect the dots. With you all the way.

And Hunter, Bobby Dylan has got a new album coming.
He just keeps on singing his story..

@120: I am very sexual, but I didn't orgasm from masturbation until I was in my early 20s. It's not a given that all girls and women can just naturally do this. Our bodies are very complicated and there is a lot of shaming to get over.

The sexy nurse thing is a bad idea, she doesn't need to eroticize his illness and dependency, she needs to dispel it.

He needs to initiate and be assertive so she can feel comfortable shedding the caregiver role. Some options:

1. Switch roles so he is the caregiver (massage, food, whatever.)

2. Play with ideas of control, with him taking charge. Doesn't need to be particularly kinky, but a blindfold and toys might help.

3. Above all, she needs to get out of the caregiver mindset outside the bedroom. If he's feeling better, he can start doing his part to reclaim the partner role instead of the dependent role.

@120: I was sexual fairly early, had no religious or other shame to deal with, and still didn't really get why masturbation was fun for a long long time. I just couldn't make enough happen myself. It didn't feel bad; it didn't feel like much at all. Figured out vibrators were fun as a late teen, and then later figured out I could do something similar with shower faucets, but could never do it unaided. Finally in my early 30's I was able to masturbate to orgasm with only my hands by mimicking something a partner did for me.

Sometimes it takes a while, even with genuine effort and interest!

@102 Main problem - she doesn't want to undo the healing and go back into hospital hell. She doesn't want to be the cause of that. It's not that she doesn't want to fuck the boy, just that the thought of rehurting him is distracting and pulls her right out of it. Reading a little too far into it, aren't you? Were you abandoned by a woman after she took care of you when you were sick? I thought that was Rush Limbaugh's m.o.

@150, 120 I had the opposite experience - knew I couldn't get much out of it, tried the vibrator route early on, that failed, gave up. Vibes are supposed to be a magic bullet, but for me it's too intense even with a really weak tiny vibe, and I'd get oversensitive and numb out almost instantly, so that I ended up feeling....nothing. Not to say I'm not aggressive with my hands or during sex, just that I need some warm up to get there and a vibe is something I can only handle fairly far along or at a distance, which I didn't learn until much older. I get far enough into it I could handle a Hitachi, but if I tried that (or any other vibe close to my clit) from the start I'd punch the guy who attempted to wield it in the throat out of reflex/pain (no one has, no one would, just saying. It would be like at the dentist when they jam the pick into your sensitive broken tooth and it's hard not to kill the guy. Dildos are also largely lost on me, though just inserted and not moved they intensify orgasm. And guys seem to love using them on me, which I do encourage, that is fun. Gotta find one who will let me return the favor. That looks fun too.

LW1 New thought! Ask the husband if he's gay. "A straight guy would be really interested in my pleasure, would want his wife enthusiastic about sex". Play one irrational religiously infused childish fear off another. No?

@72 - very late reply, but who cares if @TUT knew her for years and years - he knew her long enough to decide to marry her. That's longer than it should have taken to decide if he was OK with her sexual history or not.

And on BIBFAULT - I disagree both with the rush to "use a vibrator with him" critique of Dan, and I stick by my assertion this guy is, as BIBFAULT put it,

But even with what I now know about my sexuality, we have been unable to figure out how to get me to orgasm when we are together. I've suggested some milder forms of kink, but he isn't interested. I suspect we're just incompatible in bed, which has made me a fairly vocal opponent of the "waiting for marriage" garbage, much to my husband's consternation. He thinks it's so sweet that neither of us has ever had sex with someone else.

I'm gonna say the "vibrator with PIV" was probably attempted, and she's floated more, which he's shut down. This isn't a court of law, and I don't have to offer proof I've read her husband's mind. You couple the above with:

He got off, but I didn't. We both assumed that there was something wrong with me, because he didn't have any problem coming, right?

...and what is very clear is he's selfish and doesn't give a damn, and would be just as happy if she didn't know the difference (what she was missing) - see consternation.

She knows all this, and has expressed it diplomatically, but sees the writing on the wall and has reasonably moved on to realistic options (getting it elsewhere). Marriage is not a suicide pact. Dan got this 100% correct on the first outing.

TUT - I had sex for the first time when I was 13. My partner was 16. It was totally consensual and it was an amazing epiphany. By the time I was 15 and 16 I was totally boy crazy and while that had its pluses and minuses, it didn't do me any permanent harm. I also dated a 31 year old when I was 16.

The ability to consent doesn't magically appear on one's 18th birthday.

And if we label all sex by under-18 teens as rape, then I am a multiple rapist and so were most of my early partners.

You will notice I do not provide my own gender here. Would it make a difference? Ask yourself, TUT: Do you think that only men can "rape"? Or sex with underage girls is rape but underage boys is not?

@ 112 - Good point. Just one thing, though: "She may just have run into cousellors that aren't doing the job for her" - if it's not precisely because of some sort of religious bias on the part of the counselors, I do wonder how she managed not to find one who would suggest the vibrator in this day and age.

Sure if you have sex with someone older and you think of it as consensual then you view it that way....

BUT at 25 you have a whole different perspective when you have sex with a 15 year old.

His wife may not view it as wrong, but that 25 year old sure the hell knew it was.

Children have a hard enough time in this world without being sexualized by adults.

It's illegal for a reason, advice for all you out there:

Stop fucking kids!

@ 140 - "Could she handle for the rest of her life knowing she caused him such pain?"

WTF? You must be joking!!! After 30 years of him not giving a shit about her, why should she even care?!?

And if you're not joking, you must be the worst lay in the world, coz you obviously think it's all about the guy. People like you are the reason so many women have this problem.

@ 108 - Thanks for the compliment, but... "new guy"?

Mr Finch - You advocate well, but assume that I am trying to stick up for the first husband. I'm not; he sounds an entirely unpleasant person, but LW doesn't sound all that hot herself. If I were making a novel out of this, I'd be tempted to have her discover that he'd been cheating on her decades, so that she could divorce him with a clear conscience and the full support of her community.

I raised the one thing that struck me as the point of interest. They've been on the same page together for thirty years. *We* assumed A. *We* were both raised to believe B/C/D. *We* tried E and F. Perfectly consistent with your interpretation if we assume his participation in the books and therapy to be just above nil, but not that far off, if we impose a warping upbringing, some of the OS males who post here who are eager to please disinterested wives. Either of them could have been the driver behind the books and therapy, though the odds favour its being her doing. If I were his brief, I'd make a lot of her concluding she was the one who wasn't much good in bed rather than phrasing it that she put up with his being rotten in bed because he had compensating qualities; not being his brief, I don't have to challenge your assertion that she's being diplomatic rather than honest.

But there's the background. Same page for thirty years. (If you want to claim that your cosmic vibrations are telling you she's been blaming him all along, fine, but mine is as much a hypothetical as applied to the letter.) She suddenly realizes that everything they ever thought about sex was wrong, wrong, wrong all along. How long is it reasonable to give him to adjust his entire world view before writing him off? "Recently" could be two weeks or six months; maybe they've only tried a couple of times, or maybe it's quite clear that it will never get better with him.

It's interesting that nobody has yet raised the complication of this being three decades in rather than three years. We are also dealing with the supposedly inevitable waning of sexual passion (to combine this with the lesbian letter, as Ms Fan did on that thread).

I can see it to be fair that she gets more of a pass than he does for believing their upbringing. It victimized her and prioritized him. My instinct here is to give her 50% more leniency than him - if he gets full blame for believing their upbringing, she gets half a pass; if she gets a full pass, he gets half; 75/25, etc. I can see the case for giving her a full pass, or for giving him full blame, but don't think the two cases combine.

As for the second letter, I think you're just gilding the lily. Why make the unnecessary assumption that LW knew before the wedding? If he found out about this last week, it doesn't make him any less of an agency denier.

Mr Ricardo - Well done, yourself. If this were Downton Abbey, you'd be Sybil.

On the provider issue, perhaps Mr Horton has encountered tales of how househusbands are being dumped by their provider wives even when the wives were fully behind the arrangement in the first place. I'm not so sure about the gender breakdown; it reminds me of Willoughby's conundrum. By marrying Miss Grey and her fifty thousand pounds, he was out of debt, and came to increase the value he placed on the delights of a true love match. Had he instead married Marianne, he'd have had true love and probably would have grown to think longingly of the substantial bank balance he'd declined.

@161 - for such a literary guy, you're fumbling on a simple point in your reading of BIBFAULT: "...same page for thirty years..." (several times).

There is nothing in her letter suggesting she ever thought this was OK or good sex. Her letter says it was disappointing from the very first time they had sex...ever (not just together). The only thing they (wrongly) assumed and agreed on was that something was broken in her - that she was the one with a problem and hubby was just fine. He walked off thinking their sex was good and fine - and it was, for him - while she walked away thinking it was a letdown.

Obviously she never completely accepted this: "We reead books, we went to see a counselor" - she even went on to explore and get a vibrator of her own.

There's no bait and switch here...there's a long, long history of one person struggling alone, despite having a partner who was well alerted to the issue and failing to really step up. I'm sure his sexual self-esteem will take a hit if his wife tells him, "gee, you've always sucked in bed, I'm going to find someone else to do me right"...that's gonna hurt. Just like being stuck with someone who is happy to let you think you are broken and responsible for them being a lousy lay.

Give it up Venn...this is silly and you know better. Or are you just tittering around being contrarian to be cute?

Re Letter 1

Great breakdown gnot 122.

Awesome advice zbot 100.

neither of us knew what we were doing. He got off, but I didn't. We both assumed that there was something wrong with me

I wonder whose idea it was to stop sex after he came, that first time? Why did they assume that he knew the right way to have sex? Her 'sex hangups' seem pretty convenient for this guy.

we have been unable to figure out how to get me to orgasm when we are together

He is aware that sex isn't good but is unable to change his perception from sex being about him, to sex being about her. He's literally incapable of refraining from hypocrisy at this point.

Alone, she knows what to do (amazing she learned anything about her own sexuality with this sex is about male pleasure bullshit everywhere). But still, sex is about him. Now it's about a child in a kitchen trying to bake a cake without a recipe. He was a child eating the raw ingredients from the kitchen for years because he thought cakes were stupid or too much work. He's made himself sick. Kick him out of your kitchen and bake your own cakes until you can sex up a skilled baker. Send him to Scarleteen to educate himself. Or maybe he'll cheat and another woman can try to train him and likely kick him back to you.

I feel just as disgusted with bibfault but it's hard to yell at a woman who didn't orgasm for 50 years. But tolerating the human fleshlight routine for 30 years is just as stupid as his actions really. It's hard not to be condescending but I can be stupid too.

If she can't leave or cheat, she should refrain from sex unless
1) he'd like to hang out while she masturbates if he promises to only do as she asks and not start his ineffective initiation routines
2) they agree to an open relationship that could make them both happy
3) tie him down, maybe gag him and figure out what kind of things feel nice for your body to do with different parts of his body. Most effort to do well, but perhaps more likely for both to get behind than 2.

i'm going to add to the group of people who were married and not having satisfying sex. I too only had sex with one partner before marrying the same partner. It was pretty lousy and it got worse as the years went on. Adding to the problems, he developed delayed ejaculation, probably from all the masturbating HE did from not being satisfied. My partner refused to discuss it. When I asked how to make it pleasurable for him he said, "that's your job to figure out." I begged him. I asked him to let me watch him just so I could be a part of his orgasm.

So he dived into Porn and I was lonely and I was so sad. I was convinced that people who wrote about mind blowing sex were lying! AFINCH you talk about struggling alone. That's exactly how it feels!

there were other problems. but the final straw was over sex.

The first time I had a sexual encounter with another man, and he came, it almost cracked my brain! I was so happy to know that it wasn't just me. That I could arouse someone was a revelation.

The real sticky part IMO is that neither one of the people in LW1's story are all right or all wrong. Sex IS subjective and as simple as it it, it's also so complicated. I do believe that people who are committed to really loving and understanding each other can figure out how to resolve a lot of sexual differences. But you have to put aside a lot of hurt and resentment. You have to truly be an adult who cares about the other person more than your own feelings at the time. I say keep pushing LW1! Force him to face it, one way or another.

Girls should get vibes with tampons & training bra.

Sex after serious injury can be very life affirming. MMSL shouldn't deny him this out of a misplaced attempt at care.

@167 This:

The real sticky part IMO is that neither one of the people in LW1's story are all right or all wrong. Sex IS subjective and as simple as it it, it's also so complicated. I do believe that people who are committed to really loving and understanding each other can figure out how to resolve a lot of sexual differences. But you have to put aside a lot of hurt and resentment. You have to truly be an adult who cares about the other person more than your own feelings at the time.

...I agree with entirely. And, this I don't:

I say keep pushing LW1! Force him to face it, one way or another.

Admittedly, that's because one reason I parted ways with the first Mrs. Finch was over sex - after years of pleading and trying. It takes two to tango...both partners have to be willing to acknowledge there is a problem and try to resolve it. That's not going on here.

@168 - I've disagreed with much you've posted in the past, but could not agree more whole-heartedly with you here:

Girls should get vibes with tampons & training bra.

I'm going to go in the opposite direction of the DTMFA course the advice to BIBFAULT is taking. Not clicking sexually is a good reason to stop dating someone when you're in your 20s. At that point, the likelihood of finding someone you're more compatible with is great. But after 30 years of companionable marriage that includes children? I'm not sure.

From what BIBFAULT has said, getting sex outside the marriage for either of them would destroy the marriage. It's possible that her real choice is:

a. destroying the marriage over the POSSIBILITY that she's going to find better sex out there

b. staying in a marriage where she uses her vibrator on her own and suffers through boring but not entirely disagreeable sex with her husband

If she chooses a, she's another lonely single 50 something out there. I bet her ex finds a woman willing to put up with his unimaginative sex in a minute. Oh, and to lonely and single add probably broke, rough relationship with the children, little sympathy from friends and family, moving out of the house, whole life upended. Those things are exciting when you're young. After 50, not so much.

@170 destroying the marriage over the POSSIBILITY that she's going to find better sex out there
She didn't orgasm until she was 50 because she was listening to advice like this. I'd guess if she asked a roomful of available men for help having her first orgasm during sex, the vast majority of hands would raise if she's at least average looking, and likely all would be more familiar with a woman's pleasure than her husband. A few would be too involved with the porn on their phones to take an interest.

Mr Finch - I am not quarreling with your psychic vibrations. If I were to accept your interpretation as incontrovertible instead of merely probable, LW would lose more in my view for unclear phrasing than she would gain by the balance being moved in her favour.

We can perhaps discuss profitably whether you accept that they both believed their upbringing or not, how much of a pass she gets for doing so, and how much blame he gets.

Shit Hunter. You could be right. About her not wanting to come around her husband.. Not wanting to suddenly share that, with him. Yet.
Of course she doesn't want him.. As he is. What she does want, is the built up life they have. So, a choice. Can she kick this man's arse along, shake him up- get his attention.
People can change. His good sex is in him as she is starting to discover her good sex is in her.
Maybe she needs to go off on a holiday by herself. Maybe she needs to do what a poster up thread suggested, and have a casual fling. Not tell her husband of her plans, he'd just worry..

She needs to feel this other way, then go back and bring it to him.
Then she should tell him. Sexual cheating, I'm not in agreement with. So she tells him aFter she's done it. She explains, that it's about saving what they have.
Big noise, etc.. He won't want to loose what they have built, either.
So, he'll have to put some effort into changing. He could go to a sex worker, get the experience from another woman.

Time for some curly action, LW. Make sure you pick a holiday spot where lots of good looking men might be around. Don't go for a family man, though. All in a good cause.

@171 Philophile

A great many men wouldn't be fussed at all over how well she conforms to what we're supposed to consider good looking. If she brings her righteous enthusiasm to bed, we'll be there with bells on.

"Marriage is not a suicide pact!! "
AFinch@154. Can just see that on a bumper sticker.

@174 - tho Mrs. Finch is quite lovely, I'm embarrassed to say that I had to be passing out of my 30s before I embraced that enthusiasm is a far better indicator of quality than looks.

Ven: We can perhaps discuss profitably whether you accept that they both believed their upbringing or not, how much of a pass she gets for doing so, and how much blame he gets.

I accept they were both raised in this frame of thinking; it set the structure for how they framed the problem. I reject that they both remained unaware there was a problem - that their understanding was so simplistic as to amount to "gee, this is what mr. preacher man said the bible says so...I guess that's it!" and trotted off with happy smiles.

The LW's letter indicates they both realized something was amiss: she didn't come. For selfish/insecure husband, "not my problem, I got off, no big deal...must be something wrong with you!". As Upton Sinclair said, ""It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" The worldview/theology is convenient for him: it demands nothing of him, whether he believes it in his heart or not.

For her, it's let's go see counselors (I fear these were not LCSWs or people trained in psych, but probably more seminary), let's read books, etc. And lest you walk away thinking I'm laying all the blame at his feet, I'm not. We are all responsible for our own orgasms. You can't put the full responsibility for your own happiness on someone else. Perhaps she took a bit longer than most to finally work out what she needed, but then, she did figure it out, didn't she? She took responsibility and action. And still went back to him with it to try to resolve things. Hell, she even admits she probably took a little to long to wake up to the reality because of her conditioning.

He's either not interested, or threatened and insecure. This is the basis for my original comment.

The answer from Fundamentalists and Angry Sky Daddy theologians, since the beginning of belief in a punitive deity, is the notion of ignorance is bliss - pure ignorance is pure bliss...if you don't know what you're missing, if you don't know there is anything to miss - if there is no mind-blowing-orgasm-inducing vibrator around to clue you in that there might be something better than lame selfish hubby's dick - then you won't be tempted to tell lame hubby he's lame and go looking for better.

@170, I still think the issue at hand as she decides what to do is not really their sex life, but whether he is decent to her or contemptuous to her.

If she likes him, and thinks he was clueless but well-meaning, then why should she leave? Now she has new information, and can take baby steps to bring her well-meaning, decent husband up to speed on her sexual needs. Expecting him to be kinky right away is unreasonable, but expecting him to take a new interest in her sexuality is quite reasonable.

But if she feels he was the one putting her down and denigrating her, calling her "lousy in bed," then she should leave. She'd be better off on her own than with someone who is cruel to her.

@176 AFinch

*doffs chapeau* Desire is to some extent a function of what one has been denied. There was nothing more frustrating to me than knowing that I could make Her toes curl at will, as many times as She cared to experience, and that She couldn't manage to remember to even just show up.

You guys. Classic. MrJ. @ 178.

@179 LavaGirl

Oh, I see you there girl.

I've never asked her, Philo. God forbid. I get the feeling, my 93 yr old mother, has never had an orgasm.
Yes. This whole area of self pleasuring for females, needs some light shined on it.
Catholic girls, of course- didn't even have clits. I remember the nuns telling us, we had to be one step ahead of the boys. Innocent little me , had no idea what they were talking about.

The key word in BIBFAULT's letter is "recently." So she's found this out a few months ago and they "tried" to work it out. So now its over?

I think Dan should advise them to keep trying. You're not going to get out of a 30 year bad-sex groove in a few months. Just as she felt inferior because she never came, now maybe he feels inferior because the ultimate nightmare of the "traditional" guy has come true: The wife likes her vibrator more than him.

Maybe a 30 year-long problem will take more than a few months to solve. Also, you were perfectly happy up until this point, what's changed? Are you going to start cheating on your husband because you learned how to get yourself off?

And what have you tried? Has he used the vibrator on you? Have you used it on yourself while he pounds away?

Dan's eagerness for non-monogamy certainly seems to be showing. Also, the grass is always greener, there's no guarantee that there is another man out there for you who is as good as your vibrator. Blowing up your marriage so readily over something you just discovered seems a bit rash.

I'm not saying she shouldn't (eventually) decide to move on, but I think a thirty year commitment is worth spending a while (maybe a few years) trying to fix/improve.

Seriously. Do not keep trying this shit out with your husband, LW. Not now, not yet.
A circuit breaker is demanded, here.
Too many yrs down. Too much routine. You gotta bring another man( and probably another woman) into this mix. Just to get you two, reset .
Either go the sex worker way. Or you go find a casual
( you'll fall in love, of course. Hello. He'll be unavailable. So that's good emotional protection), at a holiday destination.
I think you were right Dan. Not to get hubby to say;
" hey honey, go get that little thingamajig of yours, bring it on in here- " death sentence.

@184 cockyballsup: Agreed, which is why I listed what I considered among the few good parts of the 80s--at least, for me (re @45). Hey, I was in my late teens and early 20s way back when, dumbly insisting that I knew everything (HA HAHAHAHAHAHA!).

I still admittedly don't, while pondering the pursuit of a masters degree (grants--and as many as possible would be NICE!).

Reality bites, and I'm ready for 50 Shades of 50.

30 years later--holy fucking shit.

Ricardo - nice read, yes my comma key was stuckkkkk, like your sarcasm key ;)

@174 Mr J - You are so sweet. I hope you have a lovely milker or two in your life. I agree that being attracted to enthusiasm is awfully convenient.

Lava - You could ask your mom! Maybe not bluntly, just if she ever quit masturbating. I didn't like my mom telling me about her masturbation menopause shit but I can't regret knowing it.. Also, why do you think busting out a vibe in bed wouldn't work? My reasoning was that it's not DDD. If she wanted to have sex with him even if it was bad... pinchy shoes to step into... I'd ask him to not move while I figured out what I liked doing with his body, and no one might come the first couple times. But that might be a headache, repeating "stay still" over and over to someone who's spend the last 30 years initiating boring sex until he can at least learn to stay still. That's the first skill. Once she finds some good movements and positioning that work for her, he has to learn orgasmic restraint, learn to take a lot of good fucking so they spend more time learning each others bodies and cascade.

A woman's skill is to trust that a man is not going to use her. Use her willingness for his orgasm, but not reciprocate care for hers. It's very easy for a virgin guy to do if he's watched porn I think. I know some women have sex before they can get off, but something must satisfy them to choose this, and the man should check to make sure this is satisfied each time, unless he doesn't care to of course. Some women get off on that too I guess.

Maybe BIBFAULT should try bringing the vibrator into the bedroom with her husband! Clitoral+vaginal penetration=boom.

Maybe BIBFAULT should bring the vibrator into the bedroom with her husband? After all, clitoral stimulation+vaginal penetration=boom!

@ 187 - It's not just a key, it's a whole keyboard!

@gnot: I know several decades plus marriages that work that way. Perhaps your friends are suffering from overly traditional worldviews, rather than their gender?

Been thinking about this. I don't think it's a generation gap thing - the predominant feminist view while I was in college was that a feminist women should have a career, a view that's softened considerably since then. I don't think it has to do with world views either - the handful of high earning provider women I do know are all quite traditional/conventional, other than being high earning provider women (turns out law firms, med schools, investment firms, and multinationals aren't looking for Women's Studies majors).

I think it's primarily about having or wanting to have kids. The procreation scenario seems to draw out regressive notions of a man's worth and role, regardless of a woman's conscious belief system. As has been mentioned before, I think our Darwinian dog-eat-dog economy only exacerbates this sort of objectification.

As I mentally flip through all the women I know who didn't have kids, it's striking how different they are than the ones who did. In addition to being more genuinely egalitarian (as opposed to supporting gender bias/roles when they work in their favor and rejecting them when they don't), they seem better able to value men simply for their companionship. I think this is also true of a lot of young women before they start thinking about kids, and older women once the kids are out of the house.

So there you have it - procreation, the ultimately obstacle to progress.

seandr @191,

Classically, the years the children are small are both the years that parents conform most closely to stereotyped gender roles and the years that the marriage is unhappiest/ most difficult.

As children grow up, parental gender roles relax and parents are happier. If I understand, you’re undergoing a prolonged small-children phase?

(Of course all families are different, but if the subject is gendered parenting this is the classic research finding. While my own mother ended up being the steady provider for the family she was utterly miserable during the first set of toddler years. When the surprise baby was born over a decade later she was working full time with only three months leave for the birth, had full-time help at home and really enjoyed that set of toddler years.)

seandr @191,

If we’re talking gendered parenting, the classic finding is that parents adhere most closely to gender roles when the children are small. Not coincidentally, those are also the years the parents’ marriage is unhappiest/ most difficult.

My own mother was utterly miserable during the first set of toddler years. As soon as the youngest was old enough for daycare she earned a Master’s degree, embarked on an interesting career and became the stable breadwinner. When the surprise baby came along over a decade later she had full-time help at home, only took three months maternity leave and thoroughly enjoyed her second set of toddler years.

If I understand your situation your family is enduring extended small-child years?

I'm saying Philo: I don't think my mother has ever masturbated. I don't think my mother has ever come. She sure behaves like a woman that hasn't. And no way, would I bring that topic up now.
If you go over to letter of the day threAd, LW has written in, has tried vibrator with her man , no luck.
Hard to believe in this day, a woman would let this go down. Or a man.
This guy has got to learn how to do a woman well. This woman has to learn how to be done well. Sex workers, for both of them.
Gee, it's not a painful solution.

All your fault , Hunter. Bringing the F word in. You know where this is gonna go.

@163 Ven - I don't know any househusbands who have been dumped because I have never met a househusband. The househusband is just as much of a unicorn as the hot willing bisexual girl up for whatever. http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015…

In my neighborhood, which is an upper-middle class gentrified near downtown Park-Slope-lite enclave, there are lots of SAHMs who are financially dependent on their husbands (as Alison noted above, it happens during early childhood). The men married to SAHM still have a desire for their wives. Even before the kids come, women seem to lose desire for men who are financially dependent on them. If Mrs. Horton's tales from girls night out are accurate, women married to the lower earning men are most vociferously expressing a lack of desire and admiration for their husbands.

I mentioned this in relation to MMSL. I thought his dependence on MMSL was the libido killer, not necessarily his perfusion.

BIBFAULT!!!! Have your husband use a vibrator on you when you have sex!!!!!!! I can't believe I have to be the one to say that.

DUH!!!!

Mr Finch - Probable enough, and you get points for Already Tried the Vibrator.

Mr Horton - You may not know any, but apparently it's a Thing. There have been articles about women in these situations, and they weren't pushed into becoming providers against their will, but took on the role willingly after lengthy egalitarian discussions with fully engaged partners. The MRAs have been trumpeting these stories and crying, Hypergamy! I'm highly doubtful, and actually my acquaintanceship breaks out much less along gender lines than yours here.

Now you have me thinking that what might most help your marriage (if you are still in dire straits) could be not so much lavishing Mrs Horton with spa days and Cuckolding Helper as was suggested before by many, but getting her a set of decent friends. Does she play bridge? My players have their faults, but usually the outlet for griping about bridge partners alleviates the desire to gripe about spouses.

Ok boys; we got to unpack this problem. If you want. You could just sit in it, of course..
The monotony of nuclear family life, is monotonous. In the het world.
I get the feeling, only cause none of them write in and complain, that gay parents, somehow can find the fun in family life.
I had some fun. We lived seperately though. Didn't have to go thru the old , will we won't we fuck tonite. Once we'd hit the bed. Only hit the bed together, when we were going to fuck.
Days are long, for both in these situations. Sometimes, being able to go to your room, close the door and have blessed solitude, is all that's required.
Silence.
Then there's the assumption, that one's spouse is there for all one's moods. Cause. No. Turns the intimacy into whinge Ville.. Boring. Boring and more
Boring.
Of course, partners/ parents are doing a hard gig together. Some sharing re problems, has to happen.
Being upbeat and cheeky and romantic;
Also needs to happen. Like. Being a pleasant companion. Being sensitive to each other's , in the moment mood- without it all having to be talked about. Blah. Blah. Blah. So much talk. Too much talk.

Yes, househusbands exist. There were several attending preschool playgroups and stuff I used to take my little kids too not long ago. The biggest problem they had was the mothers assuming they didn't quite know what they were doing and being a bit too "helpful" (interfering). But the househusbands managed this with grace. Anyway, they're not unicorns but maybe they are in large parts of the USA. I never asked or heard about the state of their sex lives!
I supported my husband through five years of postgraduate study when our kids were very small and that didn't affect our sex life adversely at all. Maybe this is a disease of upper middle-class gentrification where people are trying to keep up with each other's lifestyles and fit a more conventional model of living? I don't know. Actually I have no idea about my friend's sex lives because we don't talk about sex. I did have a circle of friends in the USA when we lived there who talked about how they were NOT having sex. I said "well, we love fucking" and left it at that. Nobody wants to hear how much sex you're having if they're not.

RE divorce after one partner becomes disabled. I googled a bit and while the research is contradictory overall it seems that heterosexual marriages are more likely to end when the wife becomes disabled. Not the husband.

So no, it’s not about emasculation.

I don’t normally go for this — I usually think that marriage is complicated, people stay together for all kinds of reasons, people who are good partners often find creative solutions, a life built together is valuable in itself, people tolerate all kinds of crazy shit and who am I to judge — but I’m thinking BIBFAULT’s is a case of DTPNPA [dump the perfectly nice person already].

BIBFAULT sounds as though her husband has always come first in the marriage generally and now she wants to try her wings. That’s a good thing. Nobody has to die for a marriage to be successful and it sounds as though this one has been successful.

We only have one life. If you can be happy, you should be. BIBFAULT has my permission to take a very scary leap and leave. After a year or so maybe she and her husband can even be good friends.

@199 con't; And turn the Television off, at night. Some favourite shows, yes.
Just not mindless, nightly, hour after hour TV. Put music on. Be tog, or do ones own thing.
Maybe, a little dancing round the house- once kids are in bed.
You know where dancing can lead you to..

@160 Believe me. The woman has mentioned the vibrator to him. If he didn't instantly go fetal about it (which I'd bet he did), she's mentioned it a hell of a lot (mentioning it once is clearly too much for this guy). That's one reason why he's crying in the corner pretending it's not real.

They were taught if she couldn't orgasm it was her fault. She's frigid. Like all the other fundie wives. His magic god given cock was supposed to be enough. Look ma, no hands. It has never occurred to this man it might have anything to do with him before. If that thought had occurred to him he'd be throwing a goddamn party for her pussy right now.

They went to sex councilors who failed to recommend vibrators. They are living in, what, the 40's? At best? No, they had vibrators in the 40's. Further back.

Would you be hot for a woman who refused to touch your penis for 30 years but thought it was sweet that you'd never had a chance to ask anyone else to do so, so you should never ever ever let anyone touch it so help you god?

This guy is a crappy lay. He's afraid of the vibe, he's afraid of her newfound sex drive (it's like it would have been when she was 18, if she had ever had halfway decent sexual contact at that age, which she didn't), he's never even seen a woman with a sex drive before, he's afraid to actually touch her bits in any kind of useful way, and he's being very clear about never wanting to change so she just better lie back and think of England as per usual.

She doesn't want this guy? She's the only woman on earth who would put up with this crap, unless he starts dating the Amish. No one wants to date this guy. This guy couldn't fuck his way out of a paper bag.

I'm sure he totally agrees with you that it's all her fault though.
Of course it's patriarchal twaddle, it's the Church. Duh. The woman is acting - she found out, on her own, what she needs, told him what she needs, he declined, now she's finding her sexual pleasure where she can and will leave him if he continues to act like a child.

She implied she was hot for him, right up and until they actually had sex. It was disappointing, never got better, they had to stay married because God says, and now 30 years later she shook off the brain washing enough to take the action she should have taken at 16. She doesn't want her kids to fall down the same crazy rabbit hole, her husband wants to keep them in the dark and for her to pretend like everything is the same as it always was before she discovered her sex organs weren't broken and defective. He probably considers it sinful for her to masturbate. Fun stuff!

@170 Her odds at 50 are a hell of a lot better than at 60. I bet he's hoping she'll hang around until it's really getting to be too late. True love!

@177 Erica - I read it as she was trying to offer him some kink of his so there could be an equal exchange - he would undergo the onerous task of allowing her to use a vibrator during sex or perhaps holding it himself, and she would do whatever crazy perverted shit he wanted. He said no thanks, he'll just keep being the only one to orgasm.

@182 "The key word in BIBFAULT's letter is "recently." So she's found this out a few months ago and they "tried" to work it out. So now its over?" Cheating by definition does not mean it's over. Cheating means it keeps going, but she fucks around. Cheaters almost always stay.

"The wife likes her vibrator more than him." Jesus, who wouldn't?

"you were perfectly happy up until this point," No she fucking wasn't. You don't go to therapy about your chronic tragic 30 years of sexual dysfunction because you are perfectly happy.

"what have you tried?" He won't let her try anything. Way to blame her though.

"there's no guarantee that there is another man out there for you who is as good as your vibrator." There is a 100% chance that there are men out there who are better than her husband though. For example, men who will let her use her vibrator. Men who might even use it on her. Vibrator + friendly live cock trumps vibrator every time, so, actually 100% chance there is another man for you who is as better than your vibrator. (That's why women will still, on occasion, condescend to have sex with a male person. Shocking, I know. You thought you had all been replaced by robots. Not yet. Soon. But not yet.)

"I'm not saying she shouldn't (eventually) decide to move on, but I think a thirty year commitment is worth spending a while (maybe a few years) trying to fix/improve." Oh sure, wait 'til you're 55. Awesome plan. So much happiness in store. The length of commitment has jack shit to do with the quality of the relationship. Just look around. Oh, and promise never to tell the children that sex can be good for the woman too. Hubby doesn't want them to know.

i think the first idea to note is that this woman wrote to dan savage. dan f'ing savage, y'all. she is WAY past some fundie preacher or counselor.

'But even with what I now know about my sexuality, we have been unable to figure out how to get me to orgasm when we are together.'

i'm guessing she's learned a LOT, and he doesn't care. she has indeed, as someone suggested, gone into space and left him gasping on the ground 'isn't it sweet we haven't had any other partners' [ so it took you 30 years to figure out i was scamming you in bed]

she wants to fuck someone. she wants permission, and she wants a rule book. and he wants her to stop with all these new-fangled ideas and just accept that's how it is for the two of them together.

@191 sean

The feminist view in college when I went through was that 1) you can be any gender/sex you want so screw the whole male/female thing, everyone is a person and should be treated equally regardless, which does mean everyone does has to stick up for the underdogs, which depending on the situation can in fact be men in which case the feminists would fight for that too, and 2) everyone should have the opportunity to pursue a career, or stay home with the kids, or some combination thereof, with the same benefits for everyone.

Law firms and medical schools are quite happy with women's studies majors at the school I went to. Most of them do go into law. Yours didn't? Not sure about multinationals but many are working in subSaharan Africa and the Middle East. Where else would a woman's studies major be?

The having kids thing is largely a financial issue, I agree. Whichever parent takes on more of the parental role suffers more careerwise and has to give up more of their personal private adult life, male or female. Since men tend to get paid more across the board the woman usually takes the bullet because her income is easier to sacrifice, but not always. What also happens is that women in college are planning their career trajectories in order to make room to have kids, knowing they'll get tripped up hard and generally aiming under their abilities in exchange for the chance to reproduce. Men don't seem to shape their careers this way, especially in college. Do guys tend to choose less demanding careers/more easily sacrificable careers in order to have children? I would be curious to hear. Should not be the case that anyone takes the bullet but unless you climb far very fast you won't be working at a place that has anything like European benefit schemes. One workaround is working for a European company, but most of them have figured out they can abuse their US workforce compared to their home bases and still be considered insanely generous by US standards. Until we fix this we won't see women achieving at the same level of men across the board. Europe's numbers are far better in this respect. I do know people who have moved over there to raise their kids because it was so much better career support wise and they actually got to see their children too.

I'd bet there's got to be some bitterness on the part of whoever stays home or merely bears most of the brunt at the crimp in their trajectory, especially if that's decided by dint of genitals rather than temperament. Raising kids sucks in the US. Women without kids do have more fun. Men without kids also have more fun. Raising kids is hard exhaustive largely unrewarding work, usually both far more boring, intense and stressful than other jobs. I wouldn't do it if you paid me, and I don't think you would either. Seriously, how much money would someone have to pay you to raise someone else's kids 24-7-365? Imagine the salary that would command (if you weren't hiring an illegal immigrant to do it, and if you were hiring someone of similar educational background, intellect, social background, etc. as yourself. Your replacement clone, basically. Pricey as hell.).

The couples I know tend to be more stay at home dad than stay at home mom, because the woman is usually making more money and the guys are just genuinely more into being the stay at home parent. It's really nice to see that honestly, men get such short shrift on that sort of thing, it's always assumed they aren't going to be good at it, or at least not as good at it, for some reason. All it is is practice, which girls tend to have been forced to have a lot more of when younger, either as a caregiver for kids or for elderly relatives or for sick people. This is not proclivity but social pressure/expectations. One solution to the somewhat inevitable career nosedive due to having a kid is to marry a guy who really actually wants to be involved in childcare, who wants to be a dad the way girls are so heavily socialized into "I always wanted to be a mom". Who doesn't want that from the person they intend to have kids with anyway? They also tend to be very solidly 50-50 in child care when together, though often the working spouse will take the rougher stuff just to give the other a break. The only inequality is nursing, but that can't be helped. A few of them dispensed with it because it was heinous for them, and things were back to equal. I really don't know what you mean about regressing back into traditional gender roles. Like how? I don't know what you mean by traditional/conventional. Do you just mean straight? Or do you mean they only wear skirts and giggle at men's jokes in high pitched tones while not making eye contact or speaking with any authority? Honestly, unless you are talking about religion, what does "traditional/conventional" mean?

Do you know a lot of stay at home dads? They've got exactly the same problems as the stay at home moms. Like any job, especially any 24-7-365 job, it breaks you down in certain predictable ways. Having a partner who isn't carrying 50% of the work even when they are around would make me a tad murderous too. Hell, being locked in with kids for 8 hours a dad would make me homicidal. Sucks the life out of you. It may not be that stay at home moms don't like hanging out with men, it may just be that they see other women as free help (we are trained to be so from childhood) and are otherwise just generally worn the hell out. Men get the brunt by default. The stay at home dads are the same way, they see other woman as rescuers from the kids too. Most adult men seem not to be as handy with kids, I guess they weren't forced into years of babysitting as often? Too reliant on whatever a traditional wife is?

The norm of course is that both adults are working, the kid is in daycare. But when it gets to be kids rather than kid, daycare costs more than the salary of one parent, so. But again, the couples I know, it's usually the dad who takes the career hit and works part time/flex time/at home while taking care of the kids. There is really no reason why it wouldn't be.

"So there you have it - procreation, the ultimately obstacle to progress."

It never had to be. In some places it isn't. Someday maybe even here. It just apparently takes the better part of a century for the government and companies to realize that women have joined the workforce and so adjustments need to be made. It's like ecosystem services - no one appreciated the work the bees did until they started dying out. Turns out childcare is an actual skilled job, and that men are equally good/bad at it. No reason why they shouldn't be 50% of the stay at home parents, or doing 50% of the childcare otherwise.

@196 Park Slope is chock a block with stay at home dads. You ever been? It's kind of the stereotype.

@196 So what you are saying is that women only fuck men for their money?

You do know some of us will have sex without being paid for it, right?